sundries

[rm]

I just want to say that relieving myself of the pressure of having to do sundries every day with the mix of articles and descriptions that makes everyone happy has been really good for me. That said, I'll still do some sometimes (see!) and I'm thinking of doing a "trash day" of links once a week on Letters from Titan. Win/win?

Also on LfT: longer post about the Patty travel thing. Meanwhile, am starting to fill in About and some of the other pages. Also, wow, I can see how people get to the blog. It is.... fascinating at times. Especially the Google searches.

fortysevenbteg nails something I plan to do research on the media coverage side of if the trend continues: large-scale animal kills are probably the shark attack of 2011.

gwyd blogged this great article on claiming butch identity. Tangentally I want to add: there's no one way to be a man, a lesbian, or even butch (as perhaps evidenced by the feedback when I auditioned to play Billy Tipton a few years ago).

D&J meeting on Monday. Novel meeting on Wednesday. People who will be playing along for DW/SJA/TW watching for my chapter research in NYC, expect a scheduling email this weekend. Other people I owe email/planning to: I'm getting there. I have a nasty work backlog that won't be fully cleared until Sunday night.

The return of Fraunces Tavern. Ten years ago, and this would have been our regular bar. But that was another life (one that seems to like trading quips with me on Twitter lately).

The Bearded Dandy of Brooklyn. Make sure you catch the slide show.

Since I recently mentioned Hadley Nagel here and on LfT, I'd be remiss if I didn't link to the WSJ's coverage of the International Debutante Ball.

Drama over a scholarly paper on ESP.

Restoring imaginative play.

Tomorrow: Barn Dance.

Getting it done: just renewed my NCIS and Broad Universe memberships. Yay me.

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

There is so much wrong with that imaginative play article, though. Play is defined as child-directed. OK. So parents must direct? But be hands-off? Um? Look, another crazy-making bit of parenting advice, hooray! I'm pretty sure that when my kids tell me the story that they're making up about me, that counts as imaginative play, but not hands-off :) Just off the top of my head...

Also, as noted by other commenters, the media problem. Media isn't seen as fuel for imaginative play when the screen is off, yet I see it clearly in my kids' play, which is not at all a parroting of what they see, but builds on it in new and inventive ways. Just like, um, the books they read.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My very strong reaction to the piece was particularly that in a world of over-involved and stifling parents playing on-line is often the only place children can play imaginatively with any privacy. I'm struck by this constantly as I work with my writing partner and other collaborators. It's absolutely the imaginative childhood that would have disturbed my parents.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Very true.

My perspectives on these issues are shaped significantly by three things:

1. I was a highly imaginative child myself, with relatively hands-off parents. (I could keep a diary, or in my case piles of notes, and not worry about snooping. I could use the typewriter to write things. I didn't have to show them to anyone unless I wanted to. etc.)

2. I used to work in pre-school, and I have had child-led play drilled into my head. That bit in the article about not telling kids how to play with a toy or game, for example, which was great advice but very familiar to me.

3. I have twins. I think that a lot of the weird overbearing parenting style that's popular today works best with solo kids and breaks down really quickly with two who are the same age. I think being so developmentally close is important in this case, too, so it's different with siblings.

(bonus: my kids are still really young. "Online" means requesting "picture of butterfly! Picture of Daddy! Picture of airplane!" from Flickr. But just wait until I get that smart phone...)

I mention all of this just b/c it means I have funny blind spots. Like, my first reaction to your comment was "well, except for paper diaries and things -- oh *wait*, other parents snoop!" Oops.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Stuff I did on my own did not interest or at least worry my parents. But my collaborative play and early writing was extremely alarming to them (this was then later justified by some pretty intense, out there, Heavenly Creatures-esque drama from my best friend in high school) and so the world of other people always required secrecy. Sometimes I think I am an only child because they feared conspiracy from small creatures.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

While my father in particular plied me with all the role-playing accoutrements I wanted in part because it meant that I'd finally found friends. Also comics, because of the swapping.

(And then I ended up doing mostly solo stuff. My friends were a) boringly straightforward in their play and b) boys who kept trying to gender-police, so I ditched them.)

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I get the chills anytime Heavenly Creatures comes up, because that story pretty much encapsulates a lot of the crazy about my first relationship.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, I've told you what went down in my situation, ne?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember and I can't - we should totally exchange creepy stories in a not public forum!